Keep up with news and features of interest to the reptile and amphibian community on the kingsnake.com blog. We cover breaking stories from the mainstream and scientific media, user-submitted photos and videos, and feature articles and photos by Jeff Barringer, Richard Bartlett, and other herpetologists and herpetoculturists.

Monday, November 10 2014

DNA testing may hold the key to identifying the right antidote to use for snake bite victims.

From New Scientist:

Chappuis and his colleagues collected samples from the fang wounds of 749 people at three health centres in Nepal, amplified the DNA and sequenced it. They then looked for matches in a publicly available reference bank of DNA sequences.

They managed to identify the snake species responsible for 194 bites, 87 of which were from species whose venom is harmful to people – most commonly the spectacled cobra and the common krait.